I ran into a strange error this morning and didn’t find any answers as I searched the forums.
Immediately after unzipping either wordpress-6.0.1.zip or wordpress-5.9.1.zip, when I launch the localhost path where the WordPress installation page should show up in Chrome browser, I instead get this error message:
“Error establishing a database connection”
This is strange because I haven’t even set up a database yet. BTW, I’m using Wampserver 3.2.6 64-bit on Windows 7.
I haven’t even installed the site yet — I’m trying to bring the installer up, but it gives me that database error. Here are some things I’ve tried already:
– Cleared browser history/cache
– Restarted web server
– Created a database first as in step 2 (The DB doesn’t usually need to be created until you get to the point in the install where it asks for db connection info): https://wordpress.org/support/article/how-to-install-wordpress/
– Tried different database names
– Tried different folder names
– Tried different versions of wordpress.zip
– Tried different folder depths
Another interesting quirk is that when I unzipped the wordpress.zip folder and left it nested two levels deep (wordpress-6.0.1/wordpress) the installer came up fine. But, not every time. But, when I renamed the folder and moved the files from the “wordpress” folder up one level (eg instead of “wordpress-6.0.1/wordpress”, “johnsite/”) I get the database error again.
– All previously installed WordPress websites on my localhost are working fine, so my guestimation is that my Wampserver is not the problem
Have any of you experienced this weird problem? I am not sure what to make of it. It is preventing me being able to install on localhost.
Thanks in advance for your assistance!